An American Family

June 1, 2017

Pakistani American Khan, who set off fireworks when he addressed immigrant-averse candidate Donald Trump at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, relates his family's emigration from Pakistan, his soldier son's life and death, and his commitment to the U.S. Constitution, which he carries with him in pocket format.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2017
A politically pointed immigrant success story mingled with equally pointed tragedy.A native of Pakistan, Khan thought of America as a land of cowboys--when, that is, he thought of anything other than enduring homegrown oppression. "If you have lived half of your life under martial law and the rest in a swirl of political chaos," he writes meaningfully, "Western ideals aren't readily in your orbit." Those ideals came to him in the form of an encounter with the Declaration of Independence and its profession of equality and inalienable rights. He found his way to America and Harvard Law, reveling in the civil order that he found nothing short of marvelous while rediscovering the Islam of his birth in its tolerant mode, not the "brutal theocracy" that interpreted the religion back home. Khan, in short, charts the nuanced evolution of an American patriot, one whose son was killed by a car bomb while serving as an Army officer in Iraq. Capt. Humayan Saqib Muazzam Khan was proclaimed a hero and posthumously earned the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for bravery in combat, to which his father characteristically adds a small wrinkle: "My son was dead because he was trying to make sure a stranger wasn't killed by mistake. He stayed true to the shape of his heart." So, it seems, did the father, who became an earnest critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, berating him for his anti-immigrant agitation and his penchant for "stirring the worst of human nature." All those credentials, of course, explain why Khan was asked to speak at the Democratic National Convention, introduced by his son's hero, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and elevated to national attention in the bargain. Self-effacing, the author writes movingly of the events leading up to that moment, which he feared, correctly, might expose him to direct attack on the part of Trump himself. Khan's aspirational memoir reminds us all why Americans should welcome newcomers from all lands.

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March 5, 2018
Khan, a Pakistani-American immigrant whose 2016 Democratic National Convention speech condemned Donald Trump for his treatment of Muslim Americans, reveals more about his family, including the life and death of his son Humayun, a U.S. army captain killed in Iraq. Khan’s voice is steady throughout the book, though there are moments—not only when describing the death of his son, but also early on when recounting his sorrow at being separated from his parents as a boy, or the joy of first discovering the U.S. Constitution—when he is audibly overcome by emotion. (That’s true for listeners as well; many will be hard-pressed to get to the end of this beautiful memoir without crying.) There are also unexpected moments of wry humor throughout, and Khan proves himself to have a skill for comic timing, like when he quips, “There had been no sexual revolution in Pakistan,” after describing his cluelessness at how to court the woman whom he would eventually marry. This moving memoir is made all the more powerful when heard in the voice of the author. A Random House hardcover.

September 15, 2017
As a young law student in a small Pakistani city, Khan, a son of farmers, had already been smitten by the principles of the U.S. Constitution. But even he could never have imagined that his moment in the limelight would come when he openly challenged presidential candidate Donald Trump about his proposed Muslim ban at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Khan's wide-eyed and eloquent memoir traces his family's history from the subcontinent to American citizenship and the tragic loss of his son, Captain Humayun Khan, in Iraq. A sense of wonder about America's promise peppers the entire narrative, even as he recounts his early struggles in the country while supporting his wife and three boys. Khan's rose-colored glasses occasionally camouflage the harsher aspects of the immigrant narrative. So while he hints at wife Ghazala's loneliness, especially after their son's death, his memoir is focused on one sunny goal: the Khan family's enthusiastic embrace of the American dream. This account is especially resonant now that we know where the family moved after their loss: Charlottesville, Virginia.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Much attention will be paid to this memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father who galvanized the country at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)